I Am The Way, The Truth and The Life

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Easter 5A – John 14:1-14

The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland

Reassurance, Recognition, Responsibility

John chapter 14 verses 1-14 are at once among the most important to understanding the Christian faith, and at the same time often the most misconstrued and thereby misleading verses of all of Christian Scripture. So first a word about what this text is not.

Jesus is not saying Christianity is the world’s only revelation of Divine Being – who he affectionately refers to as the “Father.” For one thing, for Jesus there was no such thing as Christianity. Jesus lived and died as a Jew. Nor was there much, if any, awareness that there were “other” world religions beyond the religion of the God of Israel and the religion of Caesar’s Empire which claimed Caesar to be God.

Any reading of the Prophets of Israel, texts familiar to Jesus and his disciples, reveals a constant contrast between the way of God over against the ways of whatever Empire sought the allegiance of one and all, be it Egypt, Babylon, Greece or Rome. Jesus appeals to such an understanding in John 14. It is worth considering who or what would be considered “the way” of Empire today.

Further, a thorough reading of the Fourth Gospel reveals that since Christ, the Word or logos of God, is already in everyone and everything (John 1: 1-5), and that there are “sheep not of this fold,” but that Jesus will “bring them … So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”(John 10: 16) That is, Jesus will gather the flock from people of different “ways,” relieving us of that task, freeing us to be about the work he actually calls us to do: “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and, in fact, will do greater works than these.” (John 14:13)

That is, we are to complete his work of reconciliation in the world according to the gifts given us (BCP 855), which work includes that outlined in the 25^th chapter of Matthew: food and drink for the hungry and thirsty, welcoming the stranger, visiting prisoners, clothing the naked, and caring for the sick - more on this in a later.

So Jesus is not setting up some kind of litmus test or making any sorts of claims of exclusivity. Jesus is simply placing himself and those who would dare to call themselves his followers in the context of his understanding of the religion of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and all the Prophets.

One might well ask why he is doing that now in chapter 14? In Chapter 13 Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet at the last supper and calls them to do the same for one another. Judas has set out to betray Jesus. Jesus commands the disciples to love one another “as I have loved you.” And Jesus announces that he will be leaving them soon – as in tomorrow, Good Friday.

The disciples are understandably upset and worried, and no doubt anxious about having to carry on without Jesus. What we get in Chapter 14, then, is Jesus offering Reassurance, Recognition and a call to Responsibility.

The Reassurance is that his leaving is on the one hand a return to whence he came, that is to the Father’s “house”, the dwelling place of the God who is Love (I John 4: 18-19). Here one needs to recall that Jesus, the Word or logos of God, chooses to “dwell among us.” (John 1: 14) The dwelling place of God is with us - Emmanuel, God with us.

So that Jesus is not here talking about some place ever after in the by and by. Jesus is saying that in his Father’s house there are many such “dwelling places” here and now. The reassurance is that he is with us, all of us, and all different kinds of “us,” here and now. He even says, “..so that where I am, there you are also.”

No doubt this is just as confusing for us as it is for Thomas. How can it possibly be that God chooses to dwell among us, prepare places for us and be with us? To which Jesus replies, in essence, “Do you not recognize who I am?”

If one notices absolutely nothing else about the Fourth Gospel it must be this: Jesus says the words, “I am” all the time. “I am the good shepherd,” “I am the gate,” “I am the vine,” “I am the true bread that comes down from heaven,” “I am the resurrection and I am the life,” “…so that where I am, there you may be also,” “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

Anyone reading John’s Gospel in the first or second century Jewish community would not fail to recognize 1) it begins with the very first words of all of scripture, “In the beginning….”, and 2) Jesus forever repeats the words Moses heard from the burning bush, “I am who I am.” These are only the most recognizable words of all of Hebrew Scripture: I am.

Like Thomas and Peter and the rest, we are to Recognize Jesus for who he is: he is the incarnation of the great “I am” of Exodus chapter 3!

But, says Jesus, as if to demonstrate once and for all God’s infinite grace, goodness, patience and mercy, if you still cannot Recognize me for who I am, then Recognize me by the things I do: “believe me because of the works themselves.”

That is, let’s look back over the past few years and what business I have been about, because it is in fact my Father’s business and I am entrusting you to manage the franchise! I turned water into wine, I welcomed a Samaritan woman and asked her to help me, I restored sight to the blind, I cast out demons, I healed the sick, I fed the hungry, I welcomed strangers, sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes, I raised Lazarus from the dead, I washed your feet and I gave you a commandment to love one another and to love others as I have loved you. I am who I am. Can you see me now?

So now that I have reassured you that I come from Love, I am returning to Love, and my Love, God’s Love, is all around; and I have given you ample time to recognize me for who I AM; it is time for you to take Responsibility.

There is no time to be anxious. There is no time to feel sorry for yourselves because I am going away. There is no time to be worried and upset. This is no time to be concerned with questions about what life is like after death, or are we part of the right church or the right religion. All that matters is the quality of life in relationship with Christ and one another – all others. These relationships are determined by the relationship of Jesus and God.

And do not forget that what I said to Nicodemus (John 3) I say to you all, God’s spirit blows where it wills. You know not where it comes from or where it is going. It can be blowing among Gentiles and Jews, Buddhists and Hindus, Muslims and Taoists, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Mormons, and even Agnostics and Atheists! Be clear that what is at stake is not who is being saved, but what salvation actually is.

Salvation is the breaking-in of the reign of God, God’s kingdom, here and now. And my Father’s kingdom can be recognized by the works themselves. It is time to stop worrying about all the rest and take Responsibility for the works themselves – and to recognize that others may also be doing the things God in Christ calls us to do.

For those who take Responsibility will “also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” Greater works than these!

Reassurance, Recognition and Responsibility: Is it any wonder that we try to make this 14^th Chapter about something else, anything else? For isn’t it a whole lot easier to spend our time prattling on and on about who will and who will not be saved than to take responsibility for continuing and completing Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world? Isn’t it a whole lot easier to feel superior to every one else than to get down on our hands and knees and wash their feet? Isn’t it a whole lot easier to sit around and speculate on life after death than it is to bring light and life to a dark, troubled and broken world here and now?

The way, the truth and the life is revealed in all those who participate in the works Jesus does. What this 14^th Chapter of John calls us to do is to recognize the way, the truth and the life in all those who participate in the works of Jesus and do greater works than these.

As we promise in our Baptismal Covenant: we are those people who, with God’s help, “seek and serve Christ in all persons”, loving our neighbors as ourselves. There is something of the logos, the Christ of God, in all persons. It is our Responsibility to Recognize this truth and allow ourselves to be Reassured that God’s love is with us, in us and all around us even now and for ever.

Amen.

Yom HaShoah - A Day of Remembrance

13 April 2008 – Easter 4/Yom HaShoah * John 10:1-10 / Acts 2:42-47

The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland

A Day to Remember

The history of Israel as recorded in Holy Scripture is unique among ancient historical accounts in any number of ways, but one aspect of that history is essential for us to know if we are to understand what Jesus is talking about in what is called The Good Shepherd section of the fourth gospel: Israel was not shy about critiquing its leadership.

While other written accounts of other ancient civilizations praise the leaders of their empires, Israel alone dares to lay out its history warts and all. And the metaphor of sheep and shepherd was perhaps the controlling metaphor for such critique.

This comes to a crescendo in the 34^th chapter of the Prophet Ezekiel who takes off on the kings and priests of Israel in no uncertain terms: “Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep?...You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them….I am against the shepherds…I will rescue my sheep from their mouths…” – Ezekiel 34: 2-10

The evangelist of the fourth gospel places Jesus squarely in this tradition. And why not? The priests, aristocrats and even some scribes and Pharisees had accepted employment on behalf of Rome. They were seen by the people of Israel, the “sheep,” as traitors, collaborators, selling the people out over and over again. Those listening to Jesus, a group of Pharisees who were challenging his healing a blind man and the blind man’s assertion that Jesus is from God, would recognize the sheep and shepherd metaphor and know exactly that Jesus is aligning himself with the prophetic tradition.

And the good news is meant to be heard by those followers of Jesus who were being asked to leave the synagogues that Jesus is the shepherd and the gate to the sheepfold, and that he offers protection and life – abundant life!

The trouble comes when the church does not understand the tradition to which Jesus appeals. And in the words, “All who came before me are thieves and bandits.” Early on in Christian preaching it was thought to be applied to all Jews who came before Jesus, including Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the prophets. Thus was Christian anti-Semitism birthed from an inability to recognize the metaphor and the tradition of self-criticism.

This is, of course, to turn the words of Jesus on their head, words meant to be a challenge to the political structures of the Roman Empire and those who would aid and abet the enemy of Israel’s sovereignty.

We need not rehearse, but it is essential that we remember, the history of persecution of the Jews and other non-Christians at the hands of the Church, meant to be Christ’s body in the world – a history that culminates in Hitler’s holocaust, and a history that the church does not officially repudiate until 1963 under the leadership of Pope John XXIII.

A faithful understanding of this Good Shepherd speech ought to lead the Church and its leaders to the same sort of self-examination and self-criticism that was such a prominent feature of Israel’s history. We need to always be asking ourselves, “Who are the bad shepherds in today’s church? In today’s world?” Such an understanding and application of this scripture leads us to the importance of a day such as this – a day of remembrance.

For unless we are able to embrace the spirit Jesus embraces, we are likely to end up repeating cycles of violence, exclusion and coercion rather than living in the spirit of reconciliation and redemption Jesus sets in motion. To be co-operators with Jesus’ vision of abundant life, we need to become those people who not only hear the Good Shepherd, but also recognize who he is in the history of Israel – a Jew who was not afraid to speak out against the military occupation of his people and to call to task those fellow religionists who collaborated with the enemy forces.

Had Christians in Germany, and indeed even in America, followed the Jesus of history in the 1930’s and 1940’s, millions of lives likely could have been saved. The history of the church in this period reveals only a handful of Christian leaders willing to speak out on behalf of the Jewish people – and many of them were imprisoned and executed, including people like Martin Neimoeller and Dietrich Bonhoffer. Meanwhile, many were the “thieves and bandits” in the church and in our State Department who sympathized nd even collaborated with the Nazis and Axis powers allowing them to nearly succeed in their attempt to destroy a people and a civilization – the people and civilization of Jesus.

This is a day of remembrance. We come to remember the Shoah - the Holocaust and all that it means for Christians and Jews. We come to remember who Jesus was and what he did. We come to remember how the church has misunderstood its own tradition as being a part of the tradition revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus. We must remember we come out of this tradition of self-examination and self-criticism – exercising the courage to speak truth to power. This is a day to remember who we are and whose we are, and to act accordingly, devoting ourselves to the Apostle’s teaching, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Jesus call us so that we might share in the vision of life as articulated in words of Hebrew Scripture and the Prophets – that we might have life and have it abundantly.

Amen.

Setting Our Hearts On Fire!

Easter 3A – Luke 24:13-35 * Luke 24:13-35

The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, St. Peter’s at Ellicott Mils

Were Not Our Hearts Burning Within Us

“Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road,

while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

When was the last time we felt “our hearts burning within us”? When was the last time we engaged a stranger on the road, or perhaps today in the mall, in a conversation about the scriptures? Or, in a conversation about Jesus?

There are at least two important things going on here.

Two friends of Jesus are walking on the road to Emmaus, a village about seven miles outside of Jerusalem where “things have taken place.” The Sabbath is over – that is, it is nightfall. Darkness is setting in, although nothing compared to the darkness they are feeling over “the things that have taken place” in Jerusalem. Walking and talking with the stranger, however, helps them to see things in a whole new light – a whole new way.

Then suddenly, at the dinner table the stranger takes bread, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to them – familiar actions in the Feeding of the 5,000 and at the Last Supper. Taking bread, blessing it, breaking it and giving it to others signals the presence of Jesus. The stranger vanishes instantly. They run back into town to tell the others.

Jesus is present to them in word and sacrament. Thus, Jesus is available and present to us in word and sacrament.

When I was in seminary I looked for a spiritual director and convinced my New Testament professor John Koenig to take me on despite the fact he felt unequipped and unqualified to do so. He decided that what we would do is get together every other week for what he called “a monastic walk.” That is, we would walk the streets of Manhattan and talk while we walked.

We would talk about seminary, we would talk about prayer, we would talk about Jesus, we would talk about scripture, we would talk about how the church could serve more people. Like the two people on the way to Emmaus, Jesus would be present to us as we walked and talked. Many was the day our hearts were burning within us!

I commend monastic walking as a way to bring Jesus closer into your life – to set your hearts burning within you. And if you cannot find another disciple to walk with, another professor, James Forbes, would recommend reading scripture while walking – even just walking in circles in a room. When one does this you discover that you naturally “trip” over certain words. These are the words, Professor Forbes would say, to which one needs to pay attention.

A corollary to this pertains to those of us who underline things in our Bibles. Barbara Hall, another New Testament professor of mine, would urge us to go back to our underlined Bibles and pay most attention to passages, words and lines we did NOT underline. That is where God is calling you to grow, she would say. Let’s face it, we all underline the stuff we already believe or agree with.

Finally, it should not go without saying that all the scripture that set the two disciple’s hearts on fire came from what we call the Old Testament – or Hebrew Scripture. Anyone who wants to know Jesus better had best read Moses and the prophets. Why, we even had a New Testament professor in my undergraduate work who had us spend most of the semester just reading Isaiah before even cracking the New Testament open!

When I think about it, this is what the Great Vigil of Easter is all about. We read an entire array of Old Testament stories to prepare us for the News of the Resurrection - to prepare us for baptism or the renewal of baptismal vows. All the while we are holding these tapers, lit from the Paschal Candle, the Light of Christ. We are each of us holding the light of Christ as we listen to God’s story of salvation!

Let’s pass a few of these around right now. Pass it on, or hold onto it if it is setting your heart on fire.

With the flame in our hands, and the words in our ears and hearts and souls, there is the hope that our hearts will be burning with the love of God in Christ.

Then, of course, there is the bread and the wine – the body and blood of Christ. Every Sunday the priest takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to us. When the stranger does this in Luke, we read, “Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.”

Do we open our eyes? Do we allow them to be opened? Are we prepared to see Jesus?

The preparation before seeing him in the breaking of the bread was in that conversation on the road – a discussion of the scriptures, of Moses and the Prophets. Which is of course what the Liturgy of the Word is meant to do – prepare us to see Jesus, to recognize him in the breaking of the bread, in one another, in the hymns and songs that we sing, and in all that we do.

May the Lord bless you and keep you

May the Lord’s face shine upon you and be gracious unto you

May the Lord’s countenance lift you up and give you peace

May God give you grace not to sell yourself short

Grace to risk something big for something good

Grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth

And too small for anything but love

May God take our minds and think through them

May God take our lips and speak through them

May God take our hands and work through them

And may God take our hearts and set them on fire!

In Memoriam: Dr. Jan (Jeanette) Fiske

In Memoriam

Jan Fiske

John 11: 21-27

Mourner’s Kaddish

Let the glory of God be extolled, let his great name be hallowed, in the world whose creation he willed. May his kingdom soon prevail, in our own day, our own lives, and the life of all Israel, and let us say: Amen.

Let his great name be blessed for ever and ever.

Let the name of the Holy One, blessed is He, be glorified, exalted, and honored, though He is beyond all the praises, songs and adorations that we can utter, and let us say: Amen.

For us and for all Israel, may the blessing of peace and the promise of life come true, and let us say: Amen.

May he who causes peace to reign in the high heavens, let peace descend on us, on all Israel, and all the world, and let us say: Amen.

May the Source of Peace send peace to all who mourn, and comfort to all who are bereaved. Amen. – The New Union Prayer Book, p. 629ff

The origins of this Kaddish prayer are mysterious; angels are said to have brought it down from heaven. It possesses wonderful power. Truly, if there is any bond strong enough to chain heaven to earth, it is this prayer. It keeps the living together, and forms a bridge to the mysterious realm of the dead. Because this prayer does not acknowledge death, because it permits the blossom, which has fallen from the tree of human kind, to flower and develop again in the human heart, therefore it possesses sanctifying power.

- The New Union Prayer Book, p.622

To place ourselves in this sacred story of Martha, we need to remember that her brother Lazarus has been lying dead now for four days. She and her sister Mary have been sitting shiva, the traditional days of Jewish mourning, in their home in Bethany with family and friends. No doubt they recited this Mourner’s Kaddish or something very much like it.

They had sent for their friend Jesus when Lazarus had fallen ill. He was known to have extraordinary powers to heal and cast out demons. Jesus, however, had been delayed in setting out for Bethany, Martha and Mary’s home. And his disciples had cautioned against his going since his life had already been threatened by others in that region.

But Jesus, we are told, loved Lazarus, and so he goes despite the dangers. Indeed, once he arrives at the tomb later on, we are told he weeps – Jesus weeps just as we weep.

Where we pick up this story, word has just come to the sisters of Bethany that Jesus has arrived at the edge of town. Martha, always the more practical one, always the more active and assertive of the two sisters, heads out of the house to confront him.

She speaks for all of us at times like this, “If only you had come when we called you our brother would not have died….” If only. If only. Martha has no trouble speaking truth to power, no hesitancy to speak her mind.

It turns out that Jesus works best in the world of “if only.” And Jesus has some startling news for Martha: “Your brother will rise again.”

In the world of Martha, Mary, Lazarus and Jesus there were many who believed that on the day that God’s anointed would walk into Jerusalem all of the dead would rise again. There was belief in a resurrection on the last day, the day of the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. So Martha says, “I know, I know on the last day he will rise again.”

This is where Jesus really gets Martha’s, and I hope our, attention. “I am the resurrection and the life….do you believe this?” It is at this moment in time that Martha becomes the first person in John’s Gospel to acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, God’s anointed one: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

Make what you will of this narrative. It gives license to those of us, who like Jan, struggle with times like these and even struggle with any understanding of God, to let God have it like Martha does. In fact, I suspect one of the lessons Jan learned, very much like Martha, is that it is far better to let God be the object of our anger and frustration, because God can handle it and transform it into something different, new and better, sparing anyone else upon which we may unload it from harm, and us from harming others, whether intentionally or not.

It also speaks of the profound sense of healing that comes in community. To wipe away the tears we need to come together – to allow God to wipe away our tears we need to come together. I suspect Jan wants us all to be here now so that we might begin to feel some of the release and freedom she now enjoys!

And it is a story that underscores the importance and power of women in the life of faith. It is Martha, long before the disciples, all men, who sees Jesus for who he really is.

So we come to acknowledge our loss, to acknowledge the pain and even the anger of this loss, but also to recognize that our lives are already mysteriously being changed and transformed as we reflect upon Jan’s life and Jan’s death.

Her friend and spiritual director, The Very Reverend William S. Stafford, desired very much to be here today. He does, however, offer his own reflections on the nearly 30 years he has known and been a part of Jan’s life.

To my great regret, an extended illness has kept me from joining you at the memorial service for Jan Fiske. Jan is someone I have loved and respected and struggled with and supported for nearly thirty years, and I grieve her premature death with you and so many others. Her powerful gift of healing, through which so many have grown in wholeness; her crystal-clear intellect and passionate heart; her life-long love affair with music; her friendships and relationships, in which she shared life with so many of us for so long: losing Jan, we all have much to grieve. Having known her, we all have so much for which to give God thanks.

My relationship with Jan was as a sort of spiritual director or spiritual friend or spiritual wrestling partner. She was without question the most complex person I have ever known. Jan’s gift of healing came out of intensely difficult struggle. Her physical health was always at issue in one way or another. She achieved integrity in her inner life and personality only through the most protracted and profound of battles, against great odds. Her professional credentials and achievements were won through unremitting effort. She had to build the road on which her life moved , and build it through mountains and swamps and deserts. Most of us did not know how hard it was for her.

Part of that was her convoluted relationship with God. Jan never did religion the easy way. She never glossed things over or pretended or ignored. Sometimes she was just plain weird, but she was authentic and honest. That too she learned the hard way. A fiery charismatic conversion experience in her younger years, encountering God in ecstasy and passion, left her with deep wounds and deep conflicts. The solid structure and beauty of Episcopal worship helped bring stability and peace on one level, but deep questions about Jesus and especially the Cross were not resolved. Worship was wonderful, and worship was painful. A long development led her to conversion to Orthodox Judaism, which became a genuine and deep part of her identity. So much of the life of a Jew made satisfying sense to her, from ritual and song to belonging to a special people of God that had been victimized and had won freedom and health. But in spite of all, she could not get Jesus out of her head and her heart. For all the conflict she had with him, he was just there. I urged her to bring with her every bit of her Jewish faith and practice that she could, as she slowly found her way back toward the church. I think she did so. She didn’t throw parts of her life away, even when she may have wanted to, any more than she threw people away.

What God is doing with her now, I do not know. I do know that the unmixed love and peace she longed for now awaits her, and her terrible struggle can be transfigured in God’s presence. Jesus, the Jewish rabbi and friend of the broken and marginalized, is also the risen and living Lord, fountain of life and source of light. Jan’s true integrity of being awaits her where she is now. May she rest in God’s peace, his living shalom; and may light perpetual shine upon her and within her. I will miss her and pray for her, until one day I see her again.

April 4, 2008, the second week of Easter and the commemoration of the martyrdom of Martin Luther King.

The Very Rev. William S. Stafford, Ph.D., D.D.

Dean, The School of Theology

Sewanee: the University of the South

I met Jan about this time of year 13 years ago. We discovered a mutual interest in the Jesus of Judaism. I had once considered converting to Judaism, but was discouraged by the Rabbi with whom I was studying. Jan, of course, made the leap to the religion of Jesus. As we talked she began her slow journey back into the fellowship of His body, the church.

It is wonderful that we can have this celebration of Jan’s life during the Great Fifty Days of Easter – for it was at our Easter Vigil 12 years ago that Jan returned to the church. The church is dressed in White and Gold as a reminder of our Lord’s Incarnation and Resurrection. The Paschal Candle, the Light of Christ, first lit in the darkness of Easter Eve, is burning as a sign of the light that the prophet Isaiah says shines in the darkness, and which Saint John the Evangelist proclaims the darkness has not overcome! It was lit at Jan’s baptism, her entry into eternal life lived with God, and now it lights her way as she more fully enters into that mysterious realm of God’s eternal mercy. It shines as a sign that we come from Love, we return to Love, and Love is all around. Jan was very much one of those who helped to shine the love of God all around in so many ways for so many people. She truly was a participant in Christ’s healing and reconciling ministry to all people.

And it is just eight days before the one service of the year Jan never missed here at Saint Peter’s – Yom HaShoah, our annual Holocaust Remembrance service during which we listen to the story of a living Holocaust survivor. Jan would sit in the front row, quite uncharacteristically, and lead us in singing the Peace Rounds, a hopeful piece of music that looks forward to that time when, as we pray in the Mourner’s Kaddish, that God’s “kingdom soon prevail, in our own day, our own lives, and the life of all Israel.”

(In fact let us sing the Peace Rounds together several times to put ourselves in that musical space Jan would inhabit were she to be here next week: "And everyone 'neath the vine and fig tree shall live in peace and unafraid/And everyone 'neath the vine and fig tree shall live in peace and unafraid/And into ploughshares beat their swords, nations shall learn war no more, and into ploughshares beat their swords, nations shall learn war no more.")

We are those people, like Jan, who believe that the falseness of this world is bounded by a more profound truth. So please turn to page 496 in the Red Book of Common Prayer, and let us stand where Jan has stood so many times before to affirm her faith, and affirm our faith in the One, True and Living God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus.

The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek

Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland

Easter Morning!

Easter A - 23 March 2008 * John 10: 1-18

The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church, Ellicott City, Maryland

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

Or is he? Book after book, magazine article after magazine article, movie after movie, all try to tell us just who this Jesus was. Or, more properly, is! To pin Jesus down as being this or being that is only to place him back into some kind of tomb. When we pretend that we know just who Jesus is, we simply domesticate him to be the person we need him to be and close him up in another tomb of our own making.

"The only excuse," writes John Shea (The Challenge of Jesus, The Thomas More Press: 1975), "and a lame one at that, for another book on Jesus is that we are never quite through with him. When the last syllable of the last word about Jesus the Christ has been spoken, a small, balding man who until now has been silent, will say, ‘Just a moment, I….’After two thousand years people still journey to Jesus. They bring a vaunting ego and last year’s scar, one unruly hope and several debilitating fears, an unwanted joy and a hesitant heart—and ask Jesus what to make of it. We have only gradually become aware of the hook in Jesus’ promise, ‘I will be with you always, even to the end of the world. ’This not only means he will not go away, but that we cannot get rid of him! He continues to roll back the stone from the caves we entomb him in. It is only because Jesus insists on inserting himself into the thick of our plots that we insist on commenting on him." (Shea p. 11)

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

So after forty days of Lent and the magnificent journey of Holy Week, it all seems to hinge on the actions of one woman; one previously crazy and insignificant woman; one woman who, tradition maintains, once was possessed by evil spirits. A quintessential outsider, a powerless, and much maligned woman, the likes of which have been on parade all of Lent: the Samaritan Woman at the well, the Man Blind from Birth, Nicodemus, Martha, the confrontational housekeeper, Lazarus stinking in the tomb, and now Mary of Magdala, Mary Magdalene.

She leaves the house while it is still dark. That is, it is still Sabbath: time to rest. But she who had always been restless until she met Jesus can rest no longer. He was the only person who had ever made her feel healed, healthy, and whole. When she was with Jesus all the demons seemed to vanish into thin air. So she had followed him and ministered to him, listened to him and watched him as he spread his Good News of God’s love for all people.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

So Mary Magdalene is the first to find the stone rolled away from the tomb. She runs back to tell the others. "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb! We do not know where he is?" Who is this "we?" Wasn’t she alone at the tomb in the still darkness of Sabbath morning? Are the demons back? Is it possible that she already knows that we who are reading her story are already with her wherever she goes? That we who come to eat and drink with him week in and week out on the first day of the week, that we are somehow inextricably linked with her so that wherever she goes we go, wherever she runs, we run, when her heart is racing, so is ours, because we, too, have been to the tomb in the darkness and can see that the stone has indeed been rolled away?

Mary, Peter and the disciple Jesus loved run back to the tomb. It is like a footrace. They look like a couple of kids racing down the streets of Jerusalem, the City of Peace, the City of God’s Shalom. Their hearts and feet are racing! The other disciple outruns Peter. But then like the Roadrunner in the old cartoons he puts on the brakes and does not go in. He sees linen cloths lying about, but stands back. Peter alone goes in and sees the cloths, like swaddling cloths, lying all about. As he surveys the scene, the other disciple comes in. John tells us plainly, “…he saw and he believed.”

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

There is endless speculation as to who this other disciple whom Jesus loves might be. Some say John. Others say the Samaritan Woman at the well. Still others say it is whoever reads or hears this Gospel and also sees and believes. That is, the beloved disciple is you and me.

As soon as we step closer to the communion rail and accept the bread and the wine for the first time, we, too, began to see and believe. And once one eats of this bread and drinks of this cup, one cannot help but have the feeling in your heart that you are a disciple whom Jesus loves. Each time that cup is passed to us at the Eucharist, we look into its depths beyond the dark wine shimmering gold and, trembling, we say, “Yes, Lord, I believe.”

All this takes only a moment. Then the boys return to their respective homes. Only Mary stays behind, all alone, weeping. She stoops to look in, and where before there had been nothing but swaddling cloths lying all around, there were now two angels asking her, "Woman, why are you weeping?"

And as she blurts out her answer she turns and bumps into someone else who is also asking her,

"Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?" Whom do I seek? Why am I weeping? Why is everyone asking me these questions? Who are those men in white in the tomb? Can’t any of them see what has happened? Oh, no, it’s the demons again! I’m losing my mind! "You’re the gardener,” she says. “You tell me! Where have you put him? You should know, not me! You work here. You tell me. Whom do I seek? Why am I weeping? Why indeed!!" Then it happens. The “gardener” says only one word. "Mary."

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

She has heard this voice before. Only one person ever said her name in just this way. But it does not look like him. It cannot possibly be him. But suddenly her heart is racing again! It is about to leap out of her chest as she throws herself on the one she has supposed to be the gardener! Thank God I am not crazy after all. The demons are not coming back! They are never coming back. It is Jesus. "Rabboni!" she cries as she embraces him.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

And for a moment it seems as if it is all in her hands, in her embrace. It appears as if she can hold it all back, keep him there, hold onto him forever and ever, when he says, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the father, my father and your father, my God and your God. Go and tell the others." And with that, she is given a new task. And our text simply says, "She went and told the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord, and she told them all the things he had said to her."

It took courage for Mary to go back to the tomb. It took even more courage for her to let go of Jesus. But in doing so, she gives birth to the Church. By her witness, by her testimony, the history of the world is changed, made new, transformed. Her words to his friends are the first Easter sermon ever preached! Because of her testimony, we are here today! Mary continues to run through the ages to this very day, gathering us all to be a community of his people, his beloved disciples, telling us all the Good News of God in Christ!

Like those first disciples she calls, we all race to the tomb and stoop over to see for ourselves. Like Peter, Mary and the beloved disciple, we do not all see the same things, we do not hear the same voices. Except the one voice that calls us each by name.

He calls us today. He calls us by name. He calls us to be his beloved disciples. He calls us to follow him so that we may do something beautiful with our lives and bear much fruit.

Like Mary, he also calls us to let go of him. We can shut him up in tombs of our own making, or we can be like Mary and let go, and go and tell others about our Risen Lord. In letting go, like Mary, we will find that we are more fully embraced by him, by his love and by his God than we could ever imagine.

And like the people who were changed by her words, others lives will be changed by ours. We are never quite done with Jesus. And thank God, he is never quite done with us!

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

And so are we… And so are we! Amen!

The Great Vigil of Easter

Easter Vigil 2008 – Matthew 28:1-10

The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, St. Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, MD

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

On this night we move from the cross to the empty tomb to an encounter with our Risen Lord on the road – the road of our journey with Christ. Together we experience the transition from darkness to light, from death to life. This is our Passover.

Most of all on this night we locate ourselves within a story – the story of God’s salvation for the whole world, a story that begins in Creation and extends far into the future, because the story of God’s Creation and Covenant and Redemption and Salvation is not ended. These Old Testament texts along with the epistle and gospel remind us that this is our story – they remind us that we are a part of this story and partners with God in God’s story. It is only just begun!

Our God creates (Genesis 1:1-2:2), limits darkness (Genesis), delivers us to freedom (Exodus 14:10-15:1), gives us daily bread (Isaiah 55:1-11), breathes new life into tired, lifeless, dry bones(Ezekiel 37:1-14), even opening up the graves of those who have died waiting upon the Lord, raising them to new life again!

Matthew, of course, echoes Ezekiel in last Sunday’s Passion when we heard that at the moment Jesus gave up his Spirit, an earthquake opened up the graves of many who had died, and on the day of Resurrection those who had “fallen asleep” began wandering through the streets of the city and “appeared to many!”

When we try to picture this in our minds we know why it is we heard that an entire cohort of Roman soldiers were terrified and declared, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

We are those people who recall that just as Matthew’s story of Jesus ends with violence, so it began with violence. It is the story of how the powers of Empire conspire to kill one baby who would be king, and how the machinery of Empire sets out and kills all baby boys so as to eliminate the one single threat to the Empire. The slaughter of the Innocents: an Empire that sees a new born baby as threat. And we remember how it is that one baby boy escaped to Egypt.

Nevertheless the machinery of Empire continues to grind away, day after day, year after year, until finally the Empire in the person of Pilate succeeds in the murder of that one last baby boy who got away – the one they were after all along. Behold the hard wood of the cross on which was hung the world’s salvation!

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

Matthew’s is also a story that begins and ends with the courage and faithfulness of women! From the genealogy forward, Matthew says the durability of God’s people depends always on the durability and courage of women like Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, Rachel and Mary!

Now women are at the tomb. They are many, including Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. Their witness puts us there as well. We experience the great earthquake. We see the angel roll back the stone and sit upon it. We hear the words, “Do not be afraid.” The guards protecting the interests of the Empire we are told are like dead men, but Jesus is alive! With all those witnesses, women and guards, no one sees him leave, but he is no longer there. Jesus is nowhere to be seen. The dead one is on the loose!

So we run back up the road to find the others, to tell them what we have seen and heard. With fear and great joy we run - with tears of grief and joy mingled with dust in the rising sunlight of the new day, the first day of the week, the first day of a new life, the first day of a new world. We run, racing, already with a mission, already with a Gospel, already with Good News for the world – he is risen, he is on the loose, he is going before us, he will meet us back at home in Galilee, there we will see him, when all of a sudden in the middle of the road, in the midst of the dust and tears and laughter and fear and joy, He appears and cries out, “Hail!”

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

We fall to the ground, we grab onto his feet, we worship him. We hold onto him as if we have the power and the strength to hold him there, to keep him still, never to let him out of our sight ever again. We hold on for dear life to his feet, the feet of him who just two nights before washed our feet. We whose feet had been racing now have hearts racing, leaping, pounding in the excitement of seeing our Lord Jesus before us, our hands grasping his feet.

This is no “spiritual” resurrection – make no mistake about it, this is the resurrection of a whole person, body, mind and spirit! This is a demonstration of God’s commitment to life after death – that the physical reality of a future world after death shows the created order matters to God. Matter matters. Jesus is the demonstration project for the renewal of the whole world and everyone and every thing therein.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

Then Jesus repeats the angel’s words, “Do not be afraid.” He calms our racing hearts and minds. All becomes still He repeats the mission – Go and tell others what you have seen and heard. Worship leads to mission, mission leads to living encounters with Christ. According to the gifts that have been given us we are to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world. He sends us to do this work, his work. He trusts us to keep his work alive!

Jesus says, “Do not stay here, do not hold onto me, do not simply worship me, you must go out into the world and tell others what you have seen and heard. Behold, I am making all things new!” And when they get to Galilee he is there, as he promises. And he says, “Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age!” You do not need to search or to inquire or to carry on all sorts of hocus-pocus, for I am here. I am in the bread, I am in the wine, I am in your heart. That is Jesus. He does not say that he will someday come, nor is he prescribing ways one might get to see him more clearly. Rather he says quite simply, “I am here –Always - Now and For Ever.”

Know, my sisters, my brothers, Jesus calls you to be with him.

He calls you to know he is here, even now.

He calls you to do something beautiful with your life and bear much fruit.

The world needs you, the church needs you, Jesus needs you,

They need your love and your light.

There is a hidden place in your heart where Jesus lives,

Where Jesus is already and will be always to the end of the age!

This is a deep secret you are called to live.

Let Jesus live in you! Go forward with him!

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

And so are we, so are we! Amen.

Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday 2008

The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek

Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, MD

Sir, We would see Jesus!

Tonight we begin a journey through John’s Gospel and the accounts of the Last Supper, Good Friday and the Resurrection. It is too bad that we spread this out over three days since the Last Supper, Crucifixion and Resurrection are properly viewed as a unified whole, one saving event. None of the three parts, very much like our view of God, can exist without the other two. It is only through all three that our salvation, our freedom, is secured.

Similarly, like all the documents of the Bible, John’s Gospel needs to be viewed as a whole, not in little bits and pieces. For instance, tonight’s account in Chapter 13 I believe depends very much on what comes before in Chapter 12 when some Greeks approach Philip and declare, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus!”

I can recall the first time these words made much of an impact on me. I was fresh out of seminary and visiting a Presbyterian colleague in town. He had to attend to something back in his office and left me to ramble around the sanctuary of his church. I walked up to the pulpit, stood behind it, and there, carved into the wood for the preacher to see were those very words, “Sir, we would see Jesus!”

It was a moment that was both humbling and intimidating, for in just those few words spoken to Philip nearly 2,000 years ago, the task of Christian preaching was amply summed up. We all want to see Jesus. Much as the familiar thirteenth century poetry of Sir Richard of Chichester states our desires:

Day by day, dear Lord, of thee three things I pray:

To see thee more clearly

Love thee more dearly

Follow thee more nearly

Day by day

(1197-1253)

We tend to think, like the Greeks, along these lines. We tend to think this is the order of things: if we could just see Jesus more clearly, we would come to love him enough to really truly follow him.

John with Chapter Thirteen alerts us and anyone else paying attention that in fact life with Jesus is meant to work the other way around. It is a curious chapter to say the least, but one drenched with remembrance, instruction and meaning. We use the word “drenched” advisedly since it is all about water – bathing to be specific. Which is how life with Jesus always begins – being submerged in the waters of Baptism, emerging from the sacred surf drenched with a whole new way of looking at and living life, discovering that, after all, we are God’s Beloved – God is well pleased with us.

But we get ahead of ourselves. The first thing one notices about John’s account of the Last Supper is that it is the longest account of the four gospels: five chapters long, chapters 13-17. Given such ample time for description, isn’t it odd that there is never one single mention of bread and wine, no detailed account like we get of the Passover Meal in Exodus, and no familiar “words of institution” as recounted by Paul in his letter to the Corinthians: “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me….This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

Instead we get Fellini! At the supper table, Jesus strips off his clothes, dons a towel and begins washing feet. Oh yes, the NRSV tries to cater to our sophisticated sensibilities by paraphrasing “[he] rose from supper, laid aside his garments…” with the more genteel, “took off his outer robe.” The translators obviously have not had an opportunity to watch prime time TV anytime in the past few decades and somehow feel we cannot bear to imagine Jesus, of all people, taking off his clothes. But that is how John remembers it.

Yet, it is even more disturbing to modern North Americans to think of actually touching the feet of a stranger – it strikes us as awkward at best, disgusting at the very least. For those of us who have Bluetooth phones hanging from our ears, text messaging devices in our hands as we drive, who work Excel spreadsheets while on an airplane instead of napping or reading a book, the experience of kneeling in front of someone not in one’s immediate family - or someone with whom one has had a quarrel or stood in awe or been uninterested – washing someone else’s feet is a fantastic departure, and may only be the beginning of an entirely new way to see one’s own faith in relationship to others.

It surely is a wild departure from a virtual world as the foot washer is immersed in a sensual, unprotected, tactile, personal and life-giving encounter with another person – a real person, not a Second Life avatar, but a real person! The virtual world is disavowed as something real happens in the name of Jesus, who patterns this way of relating to one another as somehow emblematic of what it means to “love one another, just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is the Maundy, the mandatum, the commandment of Maundy Thursday.

Peter, of course, and as usual, objects. Jesus, as always, puts him, and us really, in his place when he says, “Unless I wash you, you have no share in me,” followed soon by, “you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” Now we may try to pretend this was simply a figure of speech. But what if “his example” is precisely what is needed for us to physically, emotionally, personally understand what he is all about? That what he is all about, what loving one another is all about, is servanthood – serving one another – and that the only way to “get it” is to do something that is at once very simple and very hard?

Can we imagine that he wants us to follow him so that we might come to love him, and that in our following and loving is where our seeing Jesus more clearly really begins?

We are told by John that Jesus knew “…that he had come from God and was going to God.” He lives in concert with this knowledge and invites us to live out of this knowledge as well. It is a knowledge that says that moral progress only comes as we begin to acknowledge life as gift. Jesus knows this. Jesus is entwined with a purpose beyond himself. He does not even view self as we do – as disconnected, discreet, competitive, this-world-oriented entities. He is gift for others. He gives himself for others. He empties himself, taking the life of a servant. Our leader is on his knees. He is washing our feet. What does this gift make me? How do I receive such a gift? How does his gift to me reshape my image of myself? What kind of self would I be were I to refuse to give this same gift to others?

Know, my sisters, my brothers, that for God in Christ, you are God’s Beloved. You are a pearl of great price, for which Christ pays the ultimate price to save us and keep us as his own. We need to take time each day in our prayers to reflect on all of this. Give Jesus time to thank you for what you have done for him today. Let Jesus wash your feet. Feel just how good it feels after standing on them all day. Like our Baptism, this foot washing Last Supper is meant to take us beyond our usual sense of “self” to see ourselves in a new light: expansive, responsible, and cared for by the other persons who can see the truth in this new commandment to love one another. Jesus wants us to feel good – really really good.

Like Jesus, we come from God and are going to God. Jesus invites us to live into and out of this reality – this truth. We are to know life as a gift. Acknowledging life as a gift leads us to live life with an attitude of Thanksgiving – eucharistia, Eucharist.

John’s account of the Last Supper means to help us to follow Jesus in a life of service to others so that we will come to love Jesus and out of that love begin to see him more clearly. It’s the only way. It’s His Way. He washes our feet and invites us to make it our way.

Amen.